Janicki Industries donated 8 pound per sq ft Construction Foam.  We then used the foam to cut out the shape of the trike.  Then, using Gorilla Glue, we glued the pieces together.  Now, we will send this foam to Janicki and they will use the pieces to mill out the frame.  We're also making a mock up of our steering system.  We have also figured out that our current a-arms are too long, hence we are trying to find an alternative solution. 

Lemelson MIT representative Jusin Lai came for a site visit today.  We showed him around our school, including the spirit rock, woodshop, metal shop, and the Rhino Lab.  We did a presentation for him as well as the school adminstration and staff.  We were asked a lot of good questions and people were really getting into it.  Elli Shook, from our inventeam, says that this has been our best presentation yet.

Rodger South (All Tech) assisted us with our hydraulic designs.

Mark Holtz (Holtz Racing Products) is assisting us with our a-arms made of chromoly steel which our inventeam will weld into finished parts.

We're also looking forward to Justin from MIT coming to see us this Wednesday.  Can't wait!

It's a Saturday and we're logging a lot of hours into the trike to try and get this prototype as complete as possible before the event with the MIT Alumni tomorrow afternoon.  We would also like to thank Scott Shields, a Boeing engineer, for coming down to our shop today.

This week we have:

• Constructed the seat out of carbon fiber
• Mounted the seat bracket and support
• Currently developing the cable steering
• Connecting the ackerman steering system

Today the inventeam took a tour of Alcoa/Intalco in Ferndale.  Joining us on the tour was the Whatcom County council members.  The tour was very informative and we had the opportunity to see and follow the entire process of aluminum production.

We were also given the opportunity to give our presentation.

I can't explain the excitement that our whole inventeam faced today.  We finished up on our prototype and the trike actually rolled!  It feels so good to finally get something to work after months and months of preparation.

Today we came so close!  We aimed to take our trike and have it roll in the gym, unfortunately that did not happen.  However, we did come pretty darn close.  Things are starting to look up now as we can already see all the parts coming together.  Today we mounted the a-arms, kingpins, and hub.  We also molded a seat mount!